The day I became a sea-lion tamer

Dazzling white sand stretched down to a turquoise sea. It must have been the most beautiful beach in the world but the only sunbathers were families of sea-lions lounging at the water's edge and splashing in the shallows.

Suddenly I heard a grunt as one rolled down the slope and came to a halt almost on top of me.

We stared at each other before it decided I was a friend. It seemed to adopt me since, whenever anyone approached, it would bark aggressively. Meanwhile, a little brown and white bird - a hood mockingbird - was hopping around my feet. 'It's thirsty,' Juan Carlos, our guide, told me. 'It can sense you have water in your rucksack.'

If this sounds like the Garden of Eden, well, it is. We were on Espanola, our final stop on a cruise around the Galapagos Islands. I could say we had saved the best 'til last but, in truth, every day had produced similar encounters. I had rubbed noses underwater with sea-lion pups, been dive-bombed by large brown pelicans and watched masked boobies preening each other in a courtship ritual.

The 19 islands, scattered across the Equator 600 miles from Ecuador, look barren and bleak. When he landed in 1835, Charles Darwin described them as 'a broken field of black lava covered by a stunted brushwood'. They are still just the same but are home to an amazing diversity of wildlife with absolutely no fear of man.

If anyone could inspire us, it was Juan Carlos. A 42-year-old self-taught naturalist, he was passionate about conservation. Every evening before dinner he gave us a briefing on the following day's activities, lecturing us on birds, marine life, reptiles and geology.

Our home for the week was the barquentine Lili Marleen. With 25 cabins, it was full of beautiful wood panelling and gleaming brass. To start with we were just six Brits and a few Germans but only a day into the trip we answered a mayday from another cruise ship. All its passengers had to transfer to other vessels, so we were joined by a large group of disgruntled Americans. We weren't best pleased either.

We soon realised this would not be a relaxing holiday. Wake-up was at 6.45am and after a quick breakfast we would board the inflatable dinghies, or 'pangas'. We were never back before sunset and by 11pm most people had headed off to bed. As the cabins were cramped we often slept on deck, snuggling under duvets to gaze at the stars.

Cruising under full sail was what made the voyage special. But unfurling the sails was no mean task. We would watch enthralled as the crew clambered across the rigging more than 100ft above us. Climbing to the crow's nest halfway up the mast had been quite enough for me.

We followed the same itinerary as any other cruise vessel, travelling overnight and exploring a different island every day. Juan Carlos would take us on threehour treks in the heat of the day - nowhere near as daunting as it sounds. Normally we covered only a few hundred yards, stopping every so often to study the mating habits of marine iguanas or watch black frigate birds, the local thugs, attacking baby gulls.

The famous giant tortoises are seldom seen in the wild but we made a landing at Urbina Bay on Isabela in the hope of finding them. Walking up the beach was like negotiating an obstacle course. It was full of large, deep depressions in the black sand. 'Don't sit in them,' Juan Carlos warned. 'They are turtles' nests and their eggs are buried there.'

Trekking along a dusty track, we caught sight of a tortoise disappearing into the bushes and, further on, a land iguana was lying in the dirt. I couldn't get excited about the reptiles but I fell in love with the blue-footed boobies - large seabirds which look as though they have waded through paint. The guano-covered rocks were teeming with them as we took a dinghy trip along the cliffs at Tagus Bay.

Then Juan Carlos received a radio call. Whales had been sighted in the Bolivar Channel. We sped out to sea and Brian, an architect from Surrey, spotted a spout of water about half a mile away. As all eyes scanned the choppy sea, he saw another. And then, in what seemed like slow motion, a whale surfaced only 50ft from us. It was at least three times the size of our dinghy.

Back on board, Juan Carlos urged us to write our cards home. 'You don't need stamps,' he said as we sailed towards the island of Floreana. 'You can leave them at the oldest post office in South America. It was used by the sailors in the 17th Century when letters were collected by the next ship heading back to Europe and delivered by hand.'

The 'post office' turned out to be a weather-beaten barrel covered with notes and stickers a few yards from the shore. As Juan Carlos sifted through a pile of mail, he handed us several for the UK which we promised to deliver - though not by hand, I hasten to add. Our own postcards turned up only ten days later.

The system worked better than second-class post.

Getting there

Peter Deilmann Ocean Cruises (020 7436 2931) offers a 12-night holiday to the Galapagos from £2,825, including a seven-night cruise, full board, return flights to Quito with KLM from London or regional airports with onward connections, three nights in Quito and excursions.